Astrid Tvetenstrand curates exhibit, Exhibiting China, at the Boston Athenaeum.
Astrid Tvetenstrand’s (AMNESP 2023) exhibition, Exhibiting China, will run from August 11 to November 1, 2025 at the Boston Athenaeum. In 1850, the Boston Athenaeum held its first exhibition in its new building at 10½ Beacon Street. Among the 268 paintings featured were five Chinese portraits. Owned by prominent China Trade merchant and Athenaeum proprietor Augustine Heard (1785–1868), the portraits depict five Chinese business people who facilitated trade for Americans in China throughout the nineteenth century. These paintings were produced in the studio of the Chinese artist Lam Qua (1801–1860), who specialized in Western-style portraits for Western clients. Thanks to generous loans from their current holding institutions, Exhibiting China reunites them 175 years later. Displayed alongside a selection of other works featured in the 1850 exhibition, the five portraits restore a context no longer visible in the Boston Athenaeum’s collection. Seen together, the portraits prompt us to think about who American merchants worked with and how they amassed the fortunes that supported institutions back home. Tvetenstrand is the current Polly Thayer Starr Curatorial Fellow in American Art at the Boston Athenaeum.